


dead space

by natalunasans



Series: Ownership Enough [13]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Abandonment, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Master POV, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Nonbinary Character, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Time War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Drama, Silence, Suspense, Tea, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Time War Angst, time-blindness, timelords are british
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 11:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalunasans/pseuds/natalunasans
Summary: The Doctor has disappeared from the psychic wavelength; the Master expects the worst.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yellowbessie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowbessie/gifts).



> (normally Ten and S!M can hear the general flavour of each other's thoughts as a kind of background noise in the TARDIS. it's a sort of substitute for the matrix/hivemind.)

The Master awoke to silence, at least _outside_ his mind. He was alone, sprawled precariously across the control-room jumpseat; neck and head aching a bit from lying at an odd angle. Based on how much all the other pain had dulled, he guessed he'd slept -albeit uncomfortably- for several hours.

By now he was used to falling asleep, catlike, whenever and wherever his body or mind shut down. Unlike a cat, he'd wake later tucked up in a bed (usually the Doctor's), sometimes with them reading in a chair nearby. The first several times he'd lashed out at the indignity, but he'd gradually begun to expect it... Counting on anything or anyone, even the Doctor... especially the Doctor? Big mistake.

This time the Doctor's absence was underlined by their silence on the shared wavelength, where normally he would hear the background murmur of their mind chattering away. But he was sure they hadn't mentioned any plans to land the TARDIS or go exploring today. Even now, there were some things his memory latched onto.

Lately the Doctor had been leaving him alone less and less often. It hadn’t been discussed, but the Master had been having more bad days than not, and they must have noticed: any weakness on his part still drew them like a scavenger to carrion. When they were about, he couldn't work on his secret projects and they never stopped talking… At first it had set him on edge. But once in awhile, when they were rubbing the soreness out of his back or trying to soften the painful jagged edges of his anxious thoughts, he'd find himself relaxing into the contact and feel his heartsbeats slowing to sync with theirs. He’d been vigilant for so long, and with good reason, but sometimes he was hit hard by the cumulative exhaustion of all those lifetimes on alert, and he was slowly learning to just rest.


	2. Chapter 2

They'd both learned the hard way it wasn't a good idea for the Doctor to go off without at least jotting their plans on a stickynote adhered to a console monitor. The one time in this current coexistence that they’d left him alone here without prior notice, the Master's psyche had been catapulted back into the TimeWar:

_The Doctor, prioritising duty (to “justice”, not to Gallifrey) above personal loyalty, had disappeared, leaving him alone, to be… weaponised… by the Council, who had him implanted with the ‘drums’ and false memories.  Later (if you could even use that word of a conflict that tore cause from effect and rearranged timelines all over the universe), the Doctor, his Doctor, had done away with the planet, without even trying to find him first. By pure luck, he’d already exiled himself offworld. Chameleoned as a human, he hadn't even heard the voice of the Hivemind go silent._

To the Master, unwell and alone in the Doctor’s TARDIS, the past fear and abandonment had flooded back as the only reality. He relived what the Council had done to him, had made him do. It was one thing to choose (within a game of strategy that you had decided mattered, and whose rules you changed at will), to do terrible things. It was entirely another to have actions forced on you, to be treated as a disposable tool in a struggle not your own. More than the material conflagrations, the scrambling of spacetime attacked the core of a timelord’s sense of self. He was almost glad of timeblindness now, since it dulled the memories and the… wrongness… that time-sensitives should feel when encountering leftover debris from the War. But that day, in the Doctor’s unexpected absence, it had been easy to forget where and when he was, who was keeping him, and why.

With the flashbacks, the Master had… hulked-out? Broke the Doctor’s tools, the coffee maker, his own hand, and the wall he punched it through. He must have blacked out; there were bits he didn’t remember, including the Doctor's eventual return and even why they'd gone in the first place.

He knew he’d stayed in bed for several days, silent and trembling with pain and fear and shock; walled up his consciousness against further betrayal; rejected the Doctor's attempts to bandage the hand or coax him to eat anything.

It had been weeks before they could look each other in the eye again, a month before he let down any barriers in his mind.

At least that's what the Doctor had told him afterwards. Back then, still assessing the damage, he had already noticed that his timesense was mostly unreliable, but hadn't yet set up any substitute. It had all seemed a lonely eternity, turned in on himself with nothing but the shattered sounds of his own thoughts and, always, the pulse in the back of his mind.

But they'd never left him alone without warning again, and he was almost certain they never would.


	3. Chapter 3

Moving stiffly to the console, the Master checked monitors and readouts, to find that the TARDIS was still in the vortex and hadn’t materialised anywhere recently. Well, that narrowed it down. The Doctor had to be somewhere among the near-infinite corridors and rooms that sprouted outward like so many twigs and fruit pods, as the organic ship arranged and rearranged herself.

_Hey! Wanna tell me where the Doctor is?! We could save some time here..._

The ship stayed silent, but she'd always been one to hold a grudge, and at some level the Master respected that stubbornness. Respected, if not appreciated.

 _What if something's wrong?_ The colour rose in his face as he realised that he hadn't shielded any of his building worry.

Worry that the TARDIS, apparently, didn't share, as she still didn't answer.

 _Not that I'd care if it were._ He had to at least try to keep up the pretense, but he fancied he heard a sad, distant laugh... or maybe it was the relative silence getting to him. He kicked the console, but not very hard; he feared he'd need to ally with her, maybe soon.

The Master tried again to feel about for the Doctor's mind on the wavelength, but got not the slightest echo of a signal. He'd best not go losing himself in the labyrinth of the ship, where he could run out of energy mid-search, but rather start with the places the Doctor would most likely be.

But if they were in the library, he'd hear the background murmur of them reading ‘aloud’ to themself inside their head. Sometimes you could even hear the accents change (though never the distinct words) as they acted out all the voices for their own amusement. If they were in one of the labs, he'd surely feel the sparks of cognition that experimenting and troubleshooting produced. From the kitchen or the greenhouse, their mind would give out similar signals, interspersed with the quiet of routine and some sensory fireworks as they reacted to flavours or smells. Even if they were in the pool or the shower, he'd feel a slight background ambiance of their relief to be washing off the dust of the day. A visit to the storage rooms would give off waves of nostalgia that he could smell (like the odour of old books) a mile off.

The only probable place, then, was their bedroom. But even in sleep, the Doctor's mind was normally never silent. The closest it got was when the Master was dreamleading them and guided their mind into quietude to avoid nightmares. Weighed against all the things they did to keep him alive, at least there was one thing the Doctor needed him for. That and tidying up: they were rubbish at organising their own hoarding, whether material or mental.

The Master made his way to the most likely room, running one hand along the irregular corridor walls as he walked to counter the sluggish clumsy feeling in his legs and to ground himself against the dread welling up inside him.


	4. Chapter 4

He opened the bedroom door and peered into the half-dark. If that lump in the middle of the bed were not just blankets? But the Doctor couldn't be here. Even shielded, there was no way their mind could still be so silent from this close to... unless... NO, that was unthinkable. Not inside the TARDIS, impossible. She'd never allow it to happen. Still, the terror that he was barely holding down began to get the best of him. With the noise in the back of his mind, his default state was already halfway to panic. Now his heartsrate rose until the beats of them sounded louder even than the ‘drums’.

He tried to convince his secondary brain to calm down, but it wasn't having it. His vision began to swim and the nausea would be next. With almost daily panic attacks, he was used to this, but it still took up a lot of energy and distracted him from what he needed to be doing. In this case, he wasn't even sure what that entailed.

He remembered, late, to shield his mind in case the Doctor were inexplicably both nearby and alive. If something were so wrong that their mind had gone silent, they didn't need his anxiety added to it.

He remembered, even later, that he wasn’t supposed to care.

As the seasick feeling took over, he realised he'd not get through this stood in the doorway. He stumbled over to the bed and sat, more heavily than intended, on the corner nearest the door. This close to, he did hear breathing from inside the mound of blankets. So the Doctor was there, and alive. But with their mind inaudible, finding their physical presence didn't reassure him nearly as much as it should have.

The worst of the panic passed, leaving the Master weak and shaky, but a little calmer. As soon as he was able to focus, he took off his boots to move more softly, got up and went round to the other side of the bed.

His eyes had adjusted to the dim light and the Doctor's face was just visible poking out from under the duvet: hair going every which way, skin terribly pale under all those freckles. Red-rimmed but dry eyes stared past him, _through_ him.

Unsure whether to speak or make contact, he reached out a hand, but then withdrew it when the Doctor's eyes didn't track him. "Doctor?" It was almost a whisper.  He realised he’d no idea what to say.  He'd never seen the Doctor's face and mind blank like this… In his own lowest times, his mind had been too full, a threatening explosion, not this vacuum. Maybe this wasn't something that could be understood, talked out, or even infodumped.

He carefully manoeuvered himself onto the bed in front of the Doctor. Sooner or later he'd have to touch them but he was putting it off, afraid to find that they weren’t shielding anything, that the mind-void was, in some sense, real.

Behind his own shielding, he missed their usual exuberant thinking and the nonstop chatter that came with it. Almost as clever as him, and exponentially more talkative, they’d acclimated him to their mental and conversational background noise. They'd let him feel it was part of the shared environment, until it had become even a part of him, at worst an ignorable murmur, at best a kind of communication, if you read between the lines... Often their inner dialogue was enough to distract him from the otherwise overwhelming combination of the drums and his own worry. Now, when he should have felt relief to be free of the Doctor’s jabbering and hyperactive thoughts, he found himself longing for their noise, angry at them for making him expect it.

"Doctor!" More audibly, this time. Their stare was unnerving.  He shielded as much of his apprehension and frustration as he could, and finally placed his fingers on their temple. The silence, as they say, was deafening. No shields anywhere near the surface, just dead air.


	5. Chapter 5

The Master couldn't imagine what it was like to feel nothing. He almost envied it, in theory; the Cybermen were right, feelings left you vulnerable. But the sensation of this was like... he didn't have very clear memories of being dead, but maybe? The cutting off of the sensory input after the body finally shut down… the waiting… But even while awaiting regeneration or re-looming, even that one and only time that he’d forced himself _not_ to regenerate just to spite the Doctor, his mind had always stayed busy, remembering the causes of this life’s failure, trying to prepare himself for something greater with the next. Not that it had ever worked, but it was something to do. And there was always the hope that maybe next time’s the charm.

He’d thought… After what had seemed an interminable period of adjustment, once they’d worked out some frustrations and settled into a more or less comfortable coexistence, he’d thought that he’d finally won. Of course he’d had to move the goalposts, but if you weren’t cheating you weren’t trying hard enough. The Doctor would always win: “chaos always wins over order,” the Master had eventually accepted. So of course, the secret had been staring him in the face as long as he could remember: the only way to win was together. But he couldn’t get the Doctor on his side, and he refused to ‘turn good’ to join them, so 'together' had always seemed an impossibility.

In the end, it had only taken a little adjustment. The circle of the Master's survival instinct expanded just slightly, to include the person keeping him alive. In a way, this was one of his more ambitious schemes: he would try for not just the Doctor’s attention, but also their well-being. And he’d thought it was working. Once they’d let him try dreamleading, he’d helped them sleep well for the first time in years, and seen their eyes grow less haunted as the nightmares became rarer.

But, as the Doctor had found when they tried to make good on their promises to him, there are always some things that cannot be fixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.” ― Terry Pratchett


	6. Chapter 6

Now the nothingness leaching out from the Doctor’s mind threatened to swallow him up, but he didn’t know what else to try. He snaked an arm around their shoulder; they didn’t flinch away, but they also didn’t respond. He burrowed under their blanket, pulled the two of them together, and hung on, as they say, for dear life. He couldn’t stand to watch the Doctor’s blank eyes, so he tucked his head under their chin where he could still keep contact… in case.

Some days, a microspan, or an hour later, he caught himself beginning to drift into sleep and jerked back to reality, such as it was. He still felt only silence from the Doctor’s mind. In all this time he hadn't checked the watch that he'd rigged to back up his timesense... he would rather not know how long the Doctor had been like this, and if any fixed points were nearby, he preferred ignorance for the moment.

Did he dare sleep, and risk exposing the Doctor’s suddenly vulnerable consciousness to his unfettered dreams? Could he avoid it? Exhaustion always caught up with him at the most inconvenient moments. He shielded as best he could, and slipped beneath the waves.

The Master slept for a week or a few hours (uneasy dreams where he pursued a series of the Doctor’s past selves, only to lose each of them at the last moment) and came to with a jolt. His limbs had cramped from willing them immobile. His confused senses conflated the various silences together and he imagined himself deserted in some nebulous trap, until he recognised the Doctor's body, very much alive... but somehow  _not right_.

Only as panic began to spread through him again did he remember. He suppressed it and tried to take stock of what had changed.

The Doctor was still breathing, a bit more deeply now, and their eyes had finally closed. If they were sleeping, he couldn't feel any dreams, but at least that meant no nightmares.

He’d got to get up and move about, but he didn't want to leave the Doctor alone, that is to say, unsupervised. He shot them a brief explanation, just in case they could read him, then cautiously rolled over and drew up his legs towards the edge of the bed. By the time he felt the cold floor through his socks, he had a plan, albeit a mundane and pitiful one.

He caught his balance against the furniture and reached the wall. Hands splayed out for maximum contact with the rough organic surface, he sent the TARDIS a demand to put the kettle on. If nothing else, he could make the Doctor a cuppa.

**Author's Note:**

> i started this like at least a year ago and never figured out how to finish it. then i realised it was more realistic without a proper ending, because irl sometimes things don't have one.
> 
> thanks to everybody who had a look at this for me.
> 
> gifted to Bessie because it was sort of your idea.


End file.
